The Bear 2 Beta has released

Software
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33

Bear for Web is in development:

34

Yes, and has been “on their radar” since I bought my iPhone 4. :rofl:

2 Likes
35

You are right, they didn’t actually quantified “some months” :smile:

36

Is it possible at all to use third party app with iCloud sync on the Web? I’ve never seen that and thought it only a privilege of Apple’s apps

37

Mac/iOS Developers use CloudKit, not iCloud Drive, when they build apps that sync. CloudKit is fairly reliable depending on the developer’s implementation of it, and iCloud Drive isn’t. Bear’s implementation of CloudKit is one of the best I’ve tested.

3 Likes
38

My iCloud Drive is currently down (Escalated to engineering and accepted as a problem at Apple) No files or folders are being uploaded or downloaded via iCloud Drive from any of my devices, at all.

Bear syncs fine and almost instantly. So does everything else that uses Cloudkit or otherwise uses iCloud but does not use iCloud Drive (e.g. Diarly, Photos, Calendar, Notes, Devonthink) Anything that has files in an iCloud Drive folder (e.g. Pages, Numbers and all my documents) just isn’t syncing.

As has been said before round here, iCloud is a collection of services and processes, not one thing. In my experience, iCloud Drive can be flaky. Other parts of iCloud tend to be rock solid.

if there is ever to be a web version of Bear, it would have to involve them setting up another kind of sync service to get the documents to a web server or doing all the sync on a service that allows web access to what’s stored there (e.g. as Notion does or as Craft does) Given Bear 2 has so far taken YEARS I can’t see what would be another complete rewrite coming soon.

1 Like
39

I had a similar problem a few months ago and had nothing in iCloud syncing for about two weeks. Including Bear. Somehow it fixed itself and now it’s generally working fine, but now I don’t trust iCloud at all, although I still use it as my main service, but always double-check that everything has synced

40

Twice I have tried to use iCloud in place of Dropbox both times I failed miserably. Completely flaky, sometimes working other times not and as I rely on Cloud storage I need something rock solid.

Dropbox for all its bad publicity just works.

2 Likes
41

Try Filen.io German, e2ee fast and stable. Many sync options. Selective folder sync, no special folder needed if set up properly. Reasonable upgrade cost and policy.

42

hi @chrisecurtis I have very much the same problem ever since Ventura 13.2 was released, a few months back.

I had to switch off iCloud Drive and it’a major pain for so many applications!

I will follow up in a separate thread as this is now a major issue for me.

Thanks, Luca

43

Bear 2 ought to be live in a week, per ProductHunt and the Bear developers!! --squeal–

I really hope I’m right.

1 Like
44

Are you on the beta? If so, what are your impressions? How different is it from Bear 1.0?

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Bear 2 is different in features, not slower in speed nor harder to use. It’s pretty solid, and I’ve been using the beta as my daily driver for a month or two (I know, I know). It has only crashed once, and they fixed the crashing bug in a day.
There is a new menu hidden under the BIU button, especially on mobile, that reveals 21 buttons for everything from tables (!) to horizontal lines to lists and quoting. Just remember that long presses give a flyout menu with more choices. Experiment. Much faster mobile editing than before.
Markdown is now CommonMark, and not their own PolarMark style. Markdown formatting can be hidden, or not. Markdown formatting always appears when the cursor is on a line that contains formatting.
Images can be resized in app, headers can be folded, Right to left formatting is supported, brand new search routine, footnotes and [[backlinks]], with special TOC and backlinks sub-panels added to the Info Panel.

2 Likes
46

Very interested in Bear 2. Have used Craft for the last year for PKM, various work related notes and newsletters. I like it, but looking for something else. Bear 2 might be it.

47

In addition to features listed in comprehensive sgtaylor5’s post, these new features make Bear 2 good for PKM (in my opinion):

  • Unlinked mentions
  • Wikilinks aliases
  • OCR for images and PDFs (Apple Vision framework)
  • PDF preview

There are also tables (finally!) and rich link preview (optional)

2 Likes
48

Sounds like a solid upgrade of the software! There was a lot to like about Bear when I first tried it long ago. What put me off was the Polar Bear Markup Language which just added to the syntax ambiguity that already characterized Markdown. For that reason, it never stuck with me. I’m impressed that so many seem to have been waiting for a new release.

49

Thanks for the details sounds like the developers have focused on some good improvements. I’m interested in seeing what kind of uptake it will have in a crowded notes app space.

50

Within the iOS /iPadOS Appstore there is now an event (next Tuesday (July 11, 2023) - 9:00AM ) for the release.

2 Likes
51

I really like the Bear 2 beta. It has everything I’ve wanted in a note app; which I haven’t been able to find for quite some time

  • pleasant to use and polished
  • reliable sync
  • write in markdown but get WYSIWYG automatically
  • tags for organization AND wiki-links for in-line block references
  • automatic table of contents
  • native app
  • great iOS app
  • easy to attach different files
  • easy export
  • folding
  • the elastic bounce when you hit the end of the viewport when typing

Some minor quibbles with the handing of backlinks but it does everything I want “good” or “better”

1 Like
52

Thanks, sounds good. Will certainly try it out. How is the security?